My Thoughts! - by Prakash G.R.

Yesterday, when I was in Chennai, I run across this Google service accidently. What else to say?

Another V.Good for Google

written by Prakash G.R.

“Senator Barack Obama made the point on Monday that the United States needs an education system that enables children to compete with those from India and China”

 - Source: The Hindu.

I thought that this day would never come! So following the same line what might be coming up? Let me guess not-so-far-in-the-future headlines:

• Ford, Toyota, Hyundai and General Motors to form a consortium to create next generation cars as they are facing tough competition from Ambassador & Contessa in the passenger segment and luxury segment. Due to unmatched safety features and comfortness, these mobile sofas took the US markets by storm last year and made the shares of these companies nose dive
• Apple Inc. in a wide anticipated move, shut down its PC hardware division as its can’t win its competitors - HCL and Zenith Computers. Apple Inc’s CEO Steve Jobs said that this move will help Apple’s hardware division to concentrate on iPods and iPhones. He also claimed that within an year, Apple will overtake HRC and come back to number one position in personal MP3 players. Chennai based HRC is currently an undisputed leader in MP3 players with 80% of the market share and Apple a distinct second with 12%. Analysts claim that its better for Apple to shut down its entire hardware division and focus on Mac OS and its applications
• Bose Corporation proudly announced that it has signed a MoU with the Indian audio giant Ahuja. Under this agreement, Bose will use Ahuja’s superior technology in all of its sound systems. Ahuja will provide all the technology and Bose will handle the manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Following this announcement, the widespread rumours that Bose is going to fire their entire R&D department, has becoming more probable than ever
• Taking clues from the successful implementation of Indian Railway administration in Germany and Japan, the French railway minister and his officials were on a 2 month visit to India to learn the functionalities of Indian Railway. They will implement the same structure in France for a better cargo management; better passenger satisfaction and reduced costs. The Indian Railways minister Dr. Kanimozhi will help them in the study and implementation as well
• In reply to Wipro acquiring Yahoo! for Rs 200 Billion, the IT major Infosys is all set to acquire Google for Rs 300 billion in all cash and stock deal. As Infosys already has many of Google’s functionalties (Google Search - MSN Search, Gmail - Hotmail, etc) from its earlier acquisition of Microsoft last year, job cuts across the companies are envisaged
• The American parliament passed the bill on outsourcing its Government to India. Its a well known fact that for decades together, the American Government has failed to clear the debt on the nation. Increasing interest rates, inflation, appreciating Rupee, wrong foreign policies, unnecessary spending on military and war and much more problems can be solved by this. Neeraj Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India and the son of Rahul Gandhi, said that India is ready to help the reviving US economy by taking over as a President of US. Following this decision, the Nasdaq raised by more than 15% and the US dollar raised to 2 year high of Rs 52.

அப்பாவி ஆறுமுகம்: யப்பா ஒபாமா. எங்கள வெச்சு காமெடி கீமெடி எதும் பண்ணிடலையே?

written by Prakash G.R.

I was looking thru the search queries of Jan 08 for this blog and found these interesting combination of queries:

written by Prakash G.R.

No blah blah blahs, straight to the images to tell you the story.

An error in Google Doc:

An error in VSNL website:

written by Prakash G.R.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has said that an internal build of IE 8 now passes the Acid Test. Wow! Thats an achievement. I think its the second browser after Opera to pass the test. While IE 8 is expected to be released in an year or so, Firefox 3 is close to release. Its already in Beta 2 and it rocks!

Its based on Gecko 1.9, pages now loads really fast, UI is cool, Proto theme blends well with Mac and so on. If you ask for my favourite feature, it is the auto complete feature in the location bar. No longer you have to type from the beginning. Type any character in the URL/page name you want, Firefox shows all the results. See the screen shot:

In another related news, Mozilla Prism isn’t exciting as I thought earlier. Its just creates a short cut and nothing else. I thought some nice integration such as Application Menus are on the way, but nothing of that sort. If all I want is a short cut on the desktop, I don’t need an application, all I need is the upcoming version of Google Gears!

written by Prakash G.R.

Back in college days, the simplest way to talk to a stranger is take a cigarette in hand and ask “do you have a match stick”. No matter which department the other guy is, or which batch he belongs to, you can get the talk going. I think I found another simpler way now. Cricket.

Sitting inside the Bangalore Airport I see that how everyone is obsessed with Cricket. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, are watching the TV. The passengers, the shop keepers, the security guards, attendants - everyone. They all chat with there as if they were friends for a long time. The passenger who was standing next to me asking the security guard at the security counter: “what is the score?”. The answer: “x for y overs with z wickets in hand. oh sir, you should have seen the xxxxx shot at yth over. Square cut on leg side, blah blah blah…”. And the conversation went on. As the only Indian who don’t understand or watch that game, I didn’t understand all the technical words nor the person’s name, but I can surely say, the easiest way to talking to a stranger is “whats the score?” not “do you have a match stick”. Hmmm, Now that I’ve stopped smoking, I wish I like the game to get started.

PS: I typed this blog entry offline, when I was waiting in Bangalore Airport and totally forgot about it. Few mins back, my wife wanted to know the Cricket score, and since I don’t know any cricket sites, I Googled. The result was simply impressive and thought of blogging it. Subsequently reminded me of the post that I’ve not-yet-published. So here goes the result:

written by Prakash G.R.

நேத்து போட்ட பதிவில இருந்த போட்டோவ பார்த்து கோயமுத்தூர்ல பொறந்து வளர்ந்த மக்களே கண்டுபுடிக்கமுடியல. பெங்களூரு ITPL, சென்னை Tidel எல்லாத்தையும் தூக்கி சாப்புடற மாதிரி இருக்கேன்னு நெனச்சு, எல்&டி கட்டின அப்பார்ட்மெண்ட்ல இருந்து ரேஸ் கோர்ஸ் வரைக்கும் மெயில் தட்டிவிட்டிருந்தாங்க. படத்துல அப்படியே மேல மேகோட்டு மூலைல நல்லா பாருங்க? பஸ்ஸுக எல்லாம் அப்படியே கீழ போகுதுங்களா? அது நஞ்சப்பா ரோடுங்க. மூலைல இருக்கறது காந்திபுரம் டவுன் பஸ்டாண்டுங்க. இப்ப தெரியுதுங்களா அது எந்த எடம்ன்னு? உள்ள போனா சும்மா தங்கறது மட்டுமில்லீங்க சிக்கனோட சாப்பாடும் எலவசமா கவர்மெண்ட்டே குடுப்பாங்க.

இன்னும் தெரியலையா? அட என்னங்க, நம்ம சென்ட்ரல் ஜெயில் தாங்க அது. முன்ன பின்ன அங்க போனது இல்லையோ?

சும்மா சொல்லக்கூடாதுங்க, ஏதோ ஹாலிடே ரிசார்ட் மாதிரி ஜம்முன்னு கட்டிவெச்சிருக்காங்க. எனக்கு என்னமோ ஒரு ரெண்டு வாரம் அங்க போய் தங்கிட்டு வரலாம்னு தோனுது. பிட்பாக்கெட் அடிக்கறது எப்படின்னு எங்காச்சும் கத்துக்குடுத்தா சொல்லுங்க.

கொசுறு: அந்த போட்டோ நான் எடுக்கலைங்க, உபயம் - Google Earth. அட ஆமாங்க ஆமா. இப்போ high resolutionல நம்ம ஊரு நல்லா தெரியுது!

Related Links:
From the sky (question)

written by Prakash G.R.

Watching your house from the sky is interesting. Now that every week I’m flying from Coimbatore to Bangalore, I always prefer a window seat and search for my house. I can identify other landmarks as well, except for this one:

I first thought it would be Agri university, but I was wrong. Keep guessing which place this would be. I’ll update this blog tomorrow

[Update]
Answer is here.

written by Prakash G.R.

Hope you would have got a ton of forwards on the Google Maps suggesting you to “Swim across the Atlantic Ocean”. Here is another nice one. Seen on “Suggest a feature” page @ Gmail’s Help Center:

Yeah, you read it right. The next feature of Gmail is to do your laundry

written by Prakash G.R.

Who ever said that web search is a solved problem, please look at the search terms, for which Search engines referred this blog!

written by Prakash G.R.